I am once again honored to be listed as the Top Attorney in Child Custody. I would make a note that no other lawyers are listed. I was honored as the Top Child Custody lawyer in the past as well. For professional contact and other information, take a look at the Hughes & Nelson, Attorneys at Law, PLLC website.

So I was reading an article about the Google/Deep Mind AI that has learned to play the game of Go. One of the things that stood out was this photo of the matches where the AI first beat a human at the game of Go. When you look at it, they are all humans. Similar to the old days of Watson beating masters of chess, there is a human standing in for the computer to actually move the pieces.

This would seem to offer an obvious response to the concerns about AI taking over or having the potential to damage humans in the future. We should identify a few basic tasks such as driving, operating trains, transport trucks and the like where AI and autonomous actions by the robots would be helpful. But we should then define a number of areas where AI can not interface with humans without another human intermediary. This would preserve some of the jobs that may be lost (humans as the butlers to robots? haha) but it would prevent robots from taking over. The risk of AI taking actions with vehicles like cars and trucks that would mimic terrorists (crashing into a crowd, etc.) is real, but likely can be limited with some serious protocols and tracking features.

This is kind of where Elon Musk has said that we need to be very worried about AI. The self driving car is a wonderful dream. The safety gained by not having human drivers can likely be obtained with other innovations in transportation that does not require autonomous driving. So this is a specious argument and a red herring when you think about it. I mean we could have helping features that would assist in night driving or other areas of common accidents, and we could also change our laws to enforce very strict guidelines on not having cars close to each other. In that scenario the reason for the lack of safety is because it is not worth the cost of police enforcement or change in our behavior. If the reasons for robots to take over driving is that we do not want to pay for the costs of making ourselves safe seems like a stupid line of questions. Also, simple actions like having breath testing or sleepy tests in cars before they start would also alleviate a lot of trouble.

But here in this little photo is the key to future AI. AI can live on a circut board. AI can be in the cloud. It can be in the hard drive. But when AI interacts with the world, it needs a human butler. This is the key.

Having your eyes dilated is just weird. Sensitive to light, blurry vision. When you put on glasses it’s worse. Can’r really see the screen or know if I’m typing typos. Why post to a blog right now. Don’t know, it’s fall, here we are.

Verdana font in 8 point is the greatest looking websites of all time. Reminds me of old school blogs and chat back when it wasn’t just a platform and all that and people were just doing it for fun and to get things in terms of connection. Now Spotify owns my taste and my discover weekly is like the best I’ve ever thought; take that algorithm…

I found the pic above after reading a short bit about a poet who also did abstract landscapes. I put it on my windows background. My monitors sit by a window, and I can see this painting and then people working on the roof of a 5 story building across the street from my office. They’re doing the roof. Making an old hotel into apartments. Great stuff.

Dilation is relaxing the muscles of your eyes so that your pupil opens way open and all the light floods in and you can’t focus. Maybe we should dilate the world. Less focus, more light.

Just when you think things couldn’t be worse, reading something about how good things actually are is quite helpful. I urge everyone to read this article. It is mind blowingly awesome.

We have less crime than at any time in human history. Poverty is waning on a worldwide scale. Diseases that killed thousands and millions over years are quickly vanishing from the earth. It is truly staggering.

Of course you have to add the obligatory “this doesn’t mean that suffering does not exist or that we shouldn’t do more to help” of course you stupid ninnies. That goes without saying.

But anyone who feels like terrorists are closing in, that the world is about to enter the zombie apocolypse, or that politics has taken such an absurd turn that you don’t even know which way is up (are we seriously arguing with Mexico and in love with Russia? that seems weird…) just think that overall things are pretty good. Better than that, things are pretty damn good indeed.

In case anyone doesn’t know, it’s football season. Or should I say, it’s FANTASY Football season.

My league drafted last night, and with all humblebrags aside, I totally kicked it. I have a team that will be unstoppable. Here is my lineup:

QB: Colin Kaepernick

RB: Jamaal Charles

RB: Adrian Peterson

WR: Julian Edelman

WR: Michael Crabtree

WR: Vincent Jackson

FLEX QB: Russell Wilson

K: Blair Walsh

DEF: Denver Broncos

BN: Jordan Cameron – WR/TE

BN: Jason Witten – TE

BN: Greg Jennings – WR

BN: Ryan Mathews – RB

BN: Ben Tate – RB

BN: Alex Smith – QB

Now think about this, I have the #1 and #2 RBs, and the #7 and #12 QBs, and excellent other players to help out. This is truly my dream lineup. I could not have listed out much of what I wanted to fall to me in 7th place and not get it. I think I’m a lock for playoffs from here. I think this is the year that things start to fall into place.

Of course, all the caveats about NFL and the risks and injuries, and that my kids aren’t playing football, and what it ends up doing to people over the years, and how hard it is, etc etc. All that said and known. But for now, I’m going to kick butt and take names in my fantasy league!

Okay, there, I’ve said it and thrown down the gauntlet right at the start. No messing around with buildup and thesis and all that. You know where I stand right from the start. I’ll spend a bit to qualify, but let’s begin the discussion there.

Background: I received a wonderful watch from my wife for our anniversary. I was touched and amazed by the gift, but it was truly a step out in style. I had a been a true Timex cheapo or Pulsar railroad watch guy for years. Watches would last a few months or years, to then maybe disappear when one of the kids accidently flushed them down the toilet. No biggie, though my loss of my old rail road affectionately known as “glowie” has been haunting.

But all of these watches were quartz. They were $100 or less at the time. Inexpensive in the world of watches, but not cheap in the world where most people live. $100 is a $100 no matter who you are.

So quartz watches are far more inexpensive than automatic watches. And they are more accurate. This is fairly simple, as quartz watches run on a battery and have fairly straightforward mechanism that keeps them solid for years at a time depending on battery. So long as the battery is full or providing adequate charge, the operation of the crystal and electronics keeps a quartz watch on time very very wwell.

Automatic watches, by contrast, run off a spring. Some wind the spring by hand, by various other forces, but it is essentially charging a mechanical component as a mechanical battery and operating a timekeeping device off this stored energy. Even the most precise automatic watch will likely by 5-6 seconds off per day, or about a minute a week, give or take. The old movie trope of “synchronize your watches” became necessary to ensure that all those old automatic watches were on the same time as they had a tendency to slowly drop out of time.

Which is somewhat romantic. The notion of having a small spring on your wrist is neat. The sweeping second hand of an automatic watch is clearly beautiful. Let’s be honest, it’s gorgeous. It gives time the notion of a true sweep that slowly and magically moves forward in a continuous line. Watching “watch-porn” videos of expensive watches second hands sweeping gracefully around classic faces has it’s certain charm.

But it’s a lie.

There is no real sweep. It is, like the flickers of a movie screen, a succession of beats. A high-beat watch may have a spring pulse of several times (or several hundred times) per minute resulting in such small clicks and beats that the second hand appearsto traveling smoothly. But in reality the second hand is fooling you because it really is just beating so fast with such small clicks that you can’t see it. Again, there are high speed videos where they slow down an expensive watches flowing seconds into videos that help to expose the actual course of beats to show you how clicky they really are at the end of the day.

Automatic watches are sexier. Or so the ads have us believe. Automatic watches are the Rolex and Omega and the stratospherically higher end of even more respected but lesser known brands, and they are generally precise and accurate to a few seconds each day. Trouble is that it is still a few seconds less than a quartz.

Many analog watches have small timers as well. On analog wheels. To try and pretend these are anything other than decorative is silly. They may look cool or let you time some eggs boiling, but the notion that your race car or scuba session is going to have anything to do with these tiny and hard to read timers is insane. There are very specific, and mostly computerized/quartz timers for that stuff.

So what gives? The romance of an automatic watch lies in the branding and beauty of the pieces. Nobody can deny the brand appeal of Rolex. Classy ads, classic products, very expensive. That’s the hallmark of a luxury brand. It’s why people shell out mega bucks for a Bently that really isn’t all that much better than a far cheaper car.

There is also the appeal of the mechanical inefficiency. To know that your body swings a weight and that weight tightens a spring that then tells time. This puts you in touch with the rotation of the planes and measures, you are almost a part of time. Wonderful.

But four grand wonderful? Ten grand wonderful? Uh, not that wonderful.

I’ll take a quartz any day of the week. I may someday try an auto, but until I have piles of cash lying around and nothing I’d rather spend it on, I’ll take a quartz. It’s more economical and more accurate. The only trouble is, there are few things as beautiful as a Rolex no-date updated for modern tastes. Uh oh, now I’ve fallen for all that marketing… ieeeeeee…